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So much of the economic news in 2018 has related to developments in the US economy. In particular monetary policy as the world has found itself adjusting to what is called these days a “normalisation” of policy in the United States. To my mind that poses the immediate question of what is normal now? I am sure we can all agree that monetary policy has been abnormal over the past decade or so but along that path it has also begun to feel normal. People up to the age of ten will know no different and if we allow some time to be a child maybe even those at university regard what we have now as normal. After all they will have grown up in a world of low and then negative interest-rates. The media mostly copy and paste the official pronouncements that tell us it has been good for us and “saved” the economy.

I am thinking this because the US Federal Reserve last night gave a hint that it thinks something else may be the new normal.

The staff provided a briefing that summarized its analysis
of the extent to which some of the Committee’s monetary
policy tools could provide adequate policy accommodation
if, in future economic downturns, the policy
rate were again to become constrained by the effective
lower bound (ELB)

This begs various questions of which the first is simply as we have just been through the biggest trial ever of such policies surely they know them as well as they ever will? Next comes another troubling thought which is the rather odd theory that you need to raise interest-rates now so that you have room to cut them later. This is something which is not far off bizarre but seems to be believed by some. Personally I think you should raise interest-rates when you think there are good reasons for doing so as otherwise you are emulating the Grand Old Duke of York. Also there are costs to moving interest-rates so if you put them up to bring them down you have made things worse not better.

You may also note that the Zero Lower Bound or ZLB has become the ELB with Effective replacing zero. Is there a hint here that the US would be prepared to move to negative interest-rates next time around? After all we exist in a world where in spite of the recorded recovery we still have negative interest-rates in parts of Europe and in Japan. Indeed the -0.4% deposit rate at the ECB has survived what the media have called the “Euroboom”.

Effective Lower Bound

There are some odd statements to note about all of this. For example.

Accordingly,in their view, spells at the ELB could become
more frequent and protracted than in the past, consistent
with the staff’s analysis.

Seeing as we have been there precisely once what does “more frequent” actually mean? Also considering how long we were there the concept of it being even more protracted is not a little chilling if we consider what that implies. Also this next bit is not a little breathtaking when we consider the scale of the application of the policy “toolkit”

They also emphasized that there was considerable uncertainty about the economic effects of these tools. Consistent with that view, a few participants noted that economic researchers had not yet reached a consensus about the effectiveness of unconventional policies.

I do not know about you but perhaps they might have given that a bit more thought before they expanded the Federal Reserve balance sheet to above 4 trillion dollars! As to possible consequences let me link two different parts of their analysis which would give me sleepless nights if I had implemented such policies.

A number of participants indicated that there might be significant costs associated with the use of unconventional policies……….. That decline was viewed as likely driven by various factors, including slower trend growth of the labor force and productivity as well as increased demand for safe assets.

Policy Now

This is the state of play for interest-rates.

The Committee expects that further gradual increases in the target range for the federal funds rate will be consistent with sustained expansion of economic activity,

How far? Well Robert Kaplan of the Dallas Fed gave a road map on Tuesday.

With the current fed funds rate at 1.75 to 2 percent, it would take approximately three or four more federal funds rate increases of a quarter of a percent to get into the range of this estimated neutral level.

At this stage, I believe the Federal Reserve should be gradually raising the fed funds rate until we reach this neutral level.

So circa 2.5% is the target and that seems to have been accepted by the bond market as we see the ten-year Treasury Note yield at 2.82% and the thirty-year Treasury Bond yield at 2.98%. When you read about the “yield curve” and in particular reports of it being flattish this is what they mean as we have a difference of a bit over 1% between the official interest-rate and the thirty-year bond.

There has been a lot of discussion about what this means but to my mind it simply means that the bond market has figured out where the US Federal Reserve intends to send interest-rates and has set prices in response. It will have noted the problems abroad that the interest-rate rises have contributed too and the discussions about possible future cuts and adjusted yields downwards. Whether that turns out to be right or wrong is a matter of opinion but to my mind whilst we have QT now ( the Federal Reserve balance sheet is being shrunk albeit relatively slowly) regular readers will be aware I think there are scenarios where interest-rates go up and the QE purchases begin again. Some such thoughts were perhaps on the mind of Robert Kaplan on Tuesday.

Despite the fact that the current economic expansion is the second longest in the postwar period, U.S. government debt held by the public now stands at 75.8 percent of GDP, and the present value of unfunded entitlements is estimated at approximately $54 trillion. The recent tax legislation and bipartisan budget compromise legislation are likely to exacerbate these issues. As a consequence of this level of debt, the U.S. is much less likely to have the fiscal capacity to fight the next recession.

Notice the reference to US debt held by the public which of course omits the holdings by the Fed itself.

Comment

There is a fair bit to consider here and so far I have left out two factors. The first is the Donald who has expressed a dislike for interest-rate rises but so far on a much more minor scale than say President Erdogan in Turkey. Next is the issue of the Dollar which is two-fold as in its exchange-rate and how many of them there are to go around. As to the dollar exchange rate then stormy times for the US President seem to have capped it for the short-term. But as to quantity the era of QT seems unsurprisingly to have reduced the supply around the world and therefore contributed to troubles in places which relied on there being plenty of them.

This brings us to the Jackson Hole symposium which starts today where central bankers gather to discuss what to do next. For example back in 2012 Micheal Woodford gave a speech about Forward Guidance which has now become an accepted part of the “toolkit”. Central bankers seem to inhabit a world where it is not a laughing-stock and instead is avidly received and listened to by an expectant population. This time around the official story is of “normalisation” as even the unreliable boyfriend has raised interest-rates albeit only a nervous once. Also the Swedes are again promising to reduce their negativity although that has become something of a hardy perennial.

But in the backrooms I suspect the conversation will shift to “what do we do next time?” when the next recession hits and for the market aware that may be added to by the recent price behaviour of Dr,Copper. On such a road the normalisation debate may suddenly become an Outkast.

I’m sorry, Ms. Jackson, I am for real
Never meant to make your daughter cry
I apologize a trillion times

At the moment the European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council is on its summer break and does not formally reconvene until the 13th of September. So I raised a wry smile when Bloomberg assured us ” The ECB is staying calm amid Turkey and Italy routs” this morning! The world does not stand still during summer and is showing more than a few signs of upset for the ECB so let us take a look.

Turkey

The very volatile nature of Turkish financial markets is an issue for the ECB and one signal of this is how such a nearby country can have such a different official interest-rate. The Turkish central bank after hints of a new 19.25% interest-rate in the melee of Monday has remained at 17.75% which is an alternative universe to the -0.4% deposit rate of the ECB. It is hard to believe Greece and Turkey are neighbours when you look at that gap.

Next comes the exchange rate where at the start of 2018 some 4.55 Turkish Lira were required to buy one Euro as opposed to the 6.72 required as I type this. Even that is a fair retracement of the surge which saw it just fail to make 8 only on Monday. Apart from being a dizzying whirl recently we can see that the fall this year must have made trade difficult. As to how much trade there is we need to switch to the European Union about which we were told this in April.

In 2017, among the EU’s trading partners, Turkey was the fifth largest partner for exports from the EU and the sixth largest partner for imports to the EU.

The EU’s trade surplus with Turkey has fallen from a peak of EUR 27 billion in 2013 to EUR 15 billion in 2017.

Manufactured goods make up 81 % of EU exports to Turkey and 89 % of EU imports from Turkey.

In 2017, Germany was the EU’s largest import (EUR 14 billion) and export (EUR 22 billion) partner with Turkey.

Germany also had the largest trade surplus (EUR 8 billion) with Turkey while Slovenia had the largest deficit (EUR 1.5 billion).

If we just switch to exports then we see the importance of Turkey.

Germany was also the largest exporter (EUR 21.8 billion) to Turkey followed by Italy (EUR 10.1 billion) and the United Kingdom (EUR 8.4 billion). Almost a quarter of Bulgaria’s extra-EU exports (23 %) were destined for Turkey. Greece (15 %) and Romania (14 %) also had high shares while all other Member States had shares below 9 %.

Of course some of those countries are not the responsibility of the ECB but we do get an idea of vulnerabilities such as the ability of Turkish consumers to buy German cars. Also Italy with its own economic issues that I will come on to later can do without any fall in exports. Even worse for Greece.

Right in the ECB’s orbit however was this from the Financial Times last week about risks to the “precious”.

The eurozone’s chief financial watchdog has become concerned about the exposure of some of the currency area’s biggest lenders to Turkey — chiefly BBVA, UniCredit and BNP Paribas — in light of the lira’s dramatic fall…….Spanish banks are owed $82.3bn by Turkish borrowers, French banks are owed $38.4bn and Italian lenders $17bn in a mix of local and foreign currencies. Banks’ Turkish subsidiaries tend to lend in local currency.

There have been arguments since then as to exactly the size of the risk but it is clear that there is an issue. Of course if we bring the exchange-rate back in it looks much less at 6.7 to the Euro than it did at 8 but to any proper analysis that move this week may well be as dangerous as the fall. Looked at through the eyes of an ex-option trader (me) you see that a short derivative position might have been hedged in the panic ( so towards 8) but the catch is that you would be long the Euro up there just in time for it to drop! So you lose both ways. We never really find out about this sort of thing until it has really badly gone wrong.

Italy

In a way much of the problem here has been exemplified by the dreadful Autostrada bridge collapse. For a start how does that happen in a first world country? Then even worse everyone seems to be blaming everyone else. If we move to the direct beat of th ECB there is the ongoing economic growth issue.

In the second quarter of 2018 Italian economy slowed down, as suggested in the previous months by the leading indicator. The GDP quarterly slightly decelerated (+0.2% compared to +0.3% Q1,)

That brings Italy back to my long running theme that it struggles to have economic growth above 1%. Indeed as this still represents a period where monetary policy was very expansionary there will be fears for what will happen as it gets wound back.

On the latter subject of reducing and then an end to the QE program there was this on Monday.

The economic spokesman of Italy’s ruling League party warned on Monday that unless the European Central Bank offers a guarantee to cap yield spreads in the euro zone, the euro will collapse………….Borghi said the ECB should guarantee that yield spreads between euro zone government bonds not exceed a certain level, suggesting 150 basis points between the yields of any two sovereign bonds as a reasonable maximum. ( Reuters)

That sort of statement opens more than one can of worms. The simplest is just to compare that with where we are which is 284 basis points or 2.84%. So he is looking for the ECB to back stop the Italian bond market and his own spending plans a subject which has arisen before. No doubt this is driven by the rise in the ten-year yield of Italy which is now 3.14% which is not historically high but since then Italy’s national debt and therefore borrowing needs has risen meaning that matters tighten at lower yields than they used to.

Next comes the fact that even the ECB which in spite of calling itself a “rules based organisation” has operated at least to some extent by making them up as it goes along. But a programme just to help Italy would be even nearer to overt monetary financing than what we have seen so far. Other nations taxpayers would wonder why it was being singled out for favourable treatment. This would be especially true in Greece which only a week ago found that a waiver for its collateral at the ECB had ended.

Greek banks borrow just over 8 billion from the ECB in longer-term refinancing operations and now need to post a new type of collateral to maintain their access. ( Reuters)

Meanwhile there is the ongoing issue of the Italian banks and the irony of the Turkish situation is the way that Unicredit which was supposed to be escaping the noose may have found a way of putting its neck back in it.

Comment

Having looked at particular issues it is time to bring the analysis back to the day job which is monetary policy. This morning brought troubling news for those who are in the “pump it up” camp.

The euro area annual inflation rate was 2.1% in July 2018, up from 2.0% in June 2018. A year earlier, the rate was
1.3%.

Thus it has for now achieved its inflation objective and in fact it is a little above the 1.97% indicated by the previous President Jean-Claude Trichet. So those wanting more only have the “core” or excluding energy number at 1.4% to support them. They can also throw in the fact that economic growth has slowed in 2018 but also have to face the issue that even Mario Draghi regards this as pretty much a normal level.

Seasonally adjusted GDP rose by 0.4% in both the euro area (EA19) and the EU28……..Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, seasonally adjusted GDP rose by 2.2% in both the euro area and the EU28.

Thus the ECB moves forwards with its monetary policy locked on course. It has no intention of raising interest-rates and a cut would provoke questions as after all it has told us things are going well. The QE programme is being trimmed in flow terms and it will not be long before that stops. What it has now are the boring parts of central banking such as bank supervision but in the case of Euro area banks in Turkey that would look like closing the stable door long after the horse has bolted.

Of course it could intervene against the Turkish Lira to help provide some stability and to help Euro area exporters. But I think we all know it would only do that if it thought it would help the banks. Also if we take the example of right now and the fall to 6.91 versus the Euro whilst I have been typing this it would no doubt attract the attention of the Donald and his twitter feed plunging the ECB into a political morass. Such thoughts will have Mario Draghi reaching for another glass of Chianti on his summer break.

Just over three months ago on the third of May I gave some suggestions as to how to deal with a foreign exchange crisis using the hot topics at the time of Argentina and Turkey. Back then the Argentine newspaper had reported this.

On Wednesday, the US currency jumped again to reach $ 21.52 in the retail market and $ 21.18 in the wholesaler. It went up 5% in the week…….. And the Argentine peso is the currency that fell the most in the year against the dollar (12.5%) followed by the Russian ruble (9%).

Actually the R(o)uble is currently in a soft patch but it is slightly different due to its role as a petro-currency, But returning to Argentina the central bank had a few days earlier done this with interest-rates as they raised them by “300 basis points to 30.25%.”

I suggested that this was unlikely to work.

Firstly you can end up chasing you own tail like a dog. What I mean by this is that markets can expect more interest-rate rises each time the currency falls and usually that is exactly what it does next. Why is this? Well if anticipating a 27,25%% return on your money is not doing the job is 30.25% going to do it?

Actually they did not even get out of that day as the dam broke quickly and interest rates were raised by 3% later that day. Of course that just provokes the same question if a 3% rise does not work why do you think another 3% will? Well my logic applied again as the next day the central bank announced this.

It was resolved to increase the monetary policy rate by 675 points to 40%.

Frankly they were in utter disarray as they proved my point at what was extraordinary speed. Such an interest-rate will have quite a contractionary influence on an economy if sustained and so far it has been as this announcement from Tuesday informs us.

the Monetary Policy Committee (COPOM) of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic (BCRA) unanimously resolved to define the Liquidity Rate (LELIQ) ) to 7 days as the new monetary policy rate and set it at 40%.

They can have as many new rates as they like but reality is still the same.

What about the Peso?

If we return to Clarin to see what is being reported in Argentina then it is this.

After having closed stable in a day in which the Central Bank maintained the rates, the dollar rose this Wednesday 20 cents in the banks . The average of the entities surveyed by the BCRA showed a closing value of $ 28.23.

In the same sense, at wholesale level the currency increased 23 cents, to $ 27.63 .

So that is around 6 more Pesos per US Dollar. I am not sure at exactly what point a currency fall becomes a plunge but 56% over the past year is hard to argue against.

Along the way Argentina decided that is had to go to the International Monetary Fund or IMF. Although how they both think moving the goalposts will help I am not sure.

In particular, the central bank has adopted a new, more credible path of inflation targets (for example, the inflation target for end-2019 moved from 10 to 17 percent).

Also this is one way of putting it.

The exchange rate regime is a big change. It is now floating, not fixed, so it’s working as a shock absorber.

Also as I understand it this is rather economical with the truth.

Banks and the private sector also operate without money borrowed in foreign currency, so their balance sheets are not at risk from a depreciation of the peso.

It seems that the Governor of the BCRA thinks so too if this from his annual speech in January is any guide.

As a result of these measures, interest rates in dollars went down from 5%-6% annually by late 2015 to 2%-3% annually today, and lending in foreign currency went up 379% since then, from a stock of U$S 2.9 billion to 14 billion dollars today.

Perhaps the IMF were trying to deflect attention from the foreign currency borrowings of the Argentine state that the central bank had been helping to finance. You may remember the Vomiting Camel Formation that some drew on the 100 year bonds that had been issued in US Dollars by Argentina.

Turkey

Yesterday brought an example of the opposite line of thought to mine as I note this from Bloomberg.

Turkey must hike rates to 23% as the crisis gets worse, Investec says

This was presumably driven by this from Reuters.

The currency had fallen as much as 5.5 percent on Monday to 5.4250 per dollar, an all-time low and its biggest intraday drop in nearly a decade, after Washington said it was reviewing access to the U.S. market for Turkey’s exports.

Actually the territory gets even more familiar because back on June 7th Reuters told us this.

Rates rise by 125 basis points, more than expected……..Turkey’s central bank ramped up its benchmark interest rate to 17.75 percent on Thursday, taking another step to assert its independence, two weeks after an emergency rate hike and just ahead of elections.

No doubt the cheerleaders would have proclaimed success as this happened.

The lira strengthened to 4.4560 against the dollar after the rate rise from 4.5799 just before. It was trading at 4.4830 at 1605 GMT.

However they would have needed the speed of Dina Asher Smith to get out of Dodge City in time if we note where the Turkish Lira is now. So an interest-rate rise that was more than expected did not work and of course it was on top of a previous failure in this regard.

So if we stay with Investec we are left wondering about the case for a rise to 23% or 4.25% more. Especially if we note that such a rise would not even match Monday’s fall in the Lira. The environment is very volatile and the Lita has hit another new low this morning although it is jumping around.

If you want a sense of perspective well if we look back to May 3rd some got ahead of the game.

Good market spot: Turks are buying gold to hedge against booming inflation and a falling currency ( Lionel Barber)

Anecdotally central London agents tell me they are seeing an increase in Turkish buyers this year… ( Henry Pryor)

Comment

These are situations which were described rather aptly by the band Hard-Fi.

In that sense perhaps we should cut central bankers a little slack as after all the academics which are often appointed will hardly have any experience of this sort of thing. Then again that begs the question if they are the right sort of person? I recall when the UK was in such a melee back in 1992 that the establishment and I am including the Bank of England and the government in this was simply unable to cope with events as each £500 million reserve tranche disappeared even after promising interest-rate rises of 5%. What a day and night that was…..

In my opinion a combination of Bananarama and the Fun Boy Three gave some coded advice.

It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it
It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it
It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it
And that’s what gets results

Today looks as if it may be something of an epoch-making day for the UK as there is finally a decent chance that the 0.5% emergency Bank Rate will be consigned into history. Actually one way or another the decision has already been made as the Monetary Policy Committee voted last night. This was a rather unwise change made by Governor Carney as it raises the risk of leaks or what is called the early wire as the official announcement is not made until midday. As you can see from the chart below the BBC seems to think that the decision is a done deal or knows it is ( h/t @Old_Grumpy_Dave ).

This provides us scope for a little reflection as any move hardly fulfils this from back in June 2014.

This has implications for the timing, pace and degree of Bank Rate increases.
There’s already great speculation about the exact timing of the first rate hike and this decision is becoming
more balanced.
It could happen sooner than markets currently expect.

This was taken at the time as a promise and markets responded accordingly as interest-rate futures surged and the UK Pound £ rallied. From time to time people challenge me on this and say it was not a promise. What that misses is that central bankers speak in a coded language and in that language this was a clear “Tally Ho”. Of course the “sooner than markets currently expect” never happened and whilst you may or may not have sympathy for professional investors and traders it was also true that ordinary people and businesses switched to fixed-rate borrowing in response to this. The reality was that the Bank of England via its credit easing policies and then Bank Rate cut of August 2016 pushed mortgage and borrowing rates lower affecting them adversely. Such has been the record of Forward Guidance.

What about now?

There was something else in that speech which was revealing as a sentence or two later we were told this.

The ultimate decision will be data-driven

Okay so let us take the advice of Kylie and step back in time. If we do so we see that the UK economy was on a bit of a tear which of course was another reason for those who took Governor Carney at his word. In terms of GDP growth the UK economy had gone 0.6%,0.5%,0.9% and 0.5% in 2013 which was then followed by 0.9% in the first quarter of 2014. It did the same in the second quarter which he would not have known exactly but he should have known things were going well.

Let us do the same comparison for now and look at 2017 where GDP growth went 0.3%,0.2%,0.5% and 0.4% followed by 0.1% in the first quarter of this year. If you were “data driven” which sequence would have you pressing the interest-rate trigger? I think it would be a landslide victory. The MPC may not have known these exact numbers due to revisions but a 0.1% here or there changes little in the broad sweep of things.

Some might respond with the pint that he is supposed to achieve an inflation target of 2% per annum. That is true but that has not bothered the MPC much in the credit crunch era as we have just been through a phase of above target inflation which of course they not only cut Bank Rate into but promised a further cut before even they came to the realisation that their Forward Guidance had been very wrong. Also before Governor Carney took office the MPC turned a blind eye to inflation going above 5%. Whereas post the EU leave vote they rushed to ease policy in something of a panic in response to expectations of a weaker economy.

The Speed Limit

The Bank of England Ivory Tower has had a very poor credit crunch. It has clung to outdated theories rather than respected the evidence. Perhaps the most woeful effort has been around the output gap which if you recall led to it highlighting an unemployment rate of 7% which the economy blasted through ( which you might consider was yet another case for an interest-rate rise in 2014). It has clung to equilibrium unemployment rates of 6.5%,6% 5.5% and 4.5% which of course have all been by-passed by reality. Such outdated thinking has led it to all sorts of over optimism on wage growth. Yet is seems to have learned little as this illustrates.

We think our economy can only grow at a new, lower speed limit of around one-and-a-half per cent a year. We also currently think actual demand is growing close to this speed limit. This means demand can’t grow faster than at its current pace without causing prices to start rising too quickly.

This is the MPC rationale for a Bank Rate rise and the problem is that they simply do not know that. They keep trying to build theoretical scaffolding around the reality of the UK economy but seem to learn little from the way the scaffolding regularly collapses.After all we grew much faster in 2014.

The banks

As ever the precious will be at the forefront of the Bank of England’s mind. I cannot help thinking that having noted the apparent improvement shown below maybe the real reason for a change is that the banks can now take it. First Lloyds Banking Group.

Since taking over the reins in 2011, Horta-Osório has presided over a bank which has swung from an annual loss of £260mln to a profit of £3.5bn. ( Hargreaves Landsdown).

Then Barclays.

Barclays reported pretax profit of 1.9 billion pounds ($2.49 billion) for the three months from April-June, up from 659 million pounds a year ago and higher than the 1.46 billion average of analysts’ estimates compiled by the bank. ( Reuters)

Comment

A Martian observing monetary policy in the UK might reasonably be rather confused by the course of events. He or she might wonder why now rather than in 2014? Furthermore they might wonder why a mere 0.25% change is being treated as such a big deal? After all it is only a small change and the impact of such a move on those with mortgages will be both lower and slower than in the past.

Nationwide: The vast majority of new mortgages have been extended on fixed interest rates. The share of outstanding mortgages on variable interest rates has fallen to its lowest level on record, at c.35% from a peak of 70% in 2001. ( h/t @moved_average )

So if they do move the impact will be lower than in the past which makes you wonder why they have vacillated so much and been so unreliable?

The MPC have got themselves on a road where all the indecision means that the timing is likely to be off. What I mean by that is that whilst I expect economic growth to pick-up from the first quarter this year will merely be an okay year and currently the threats seem to the downside in terms of trade for example. We do not yet know where the Trump trade tariffs will lead but we do know that the Euro area has seen economic growth fall such that the first half of 2018 was required to reach what so recently was the quarterly growth rate. Also the ongoing rhetoric of the Bank of England about Brexit prospects hardly makes a case for a Bank Rate rise now either as it would be impacting as we leave ( assuming we do leave next March).

The next issue is money supply growth which in 2018 so far has been weak and now (hopefully) has stabilised. That does not make much of a case for raising now and would lead to the MPC operating in the reverse way to monetary trends as it cut into strength in August 2016 and now would be raising into relative weakness.

So there you have it on what is an odd day all round. I think UK interest-rates should be higher but also think that timing matters and that a boat or two has sailed already without us on it. Accordingly my view would be to wait for the next one. For the reasons explained above whilst the MPC has managed to verbally box itself into a corner I still think that there is a chance ( 1/3rd) of an unchanged vote today. It is always the same when logic points in a different direction to hints of direction.

There is also the issue of QE which rarely gets a mention. If we skip the embarrassment all round of the Corporate Bond purchases we could also have taken the chance to trim the QE package when money supply growth was strong. I remember making that case nearly five years ago in City-AM.

Recently I watched a BBC Four documentary series on the House of Osman or as we call it the Ottoman Empire which extended into south-east Europe as well as around the Mediterranean into North Africa. Now we associate it with decline and the phrase “young Turks” which oddly seems to have given inspiration to Rod Stewart but back in time it was a thriving Empire managing to rule parts of the world that we now consider not only as hot-spots but maybe too hot to handle. Now we find that the subject of a possible empire is in the news yet again.

Investors have been unnerved by Mr Erdogan’s decision to place his son-in-law in charge of the economy brief while sidelining familiar and respected former ministers. ( Financial Times)

Promoting family members is something of an in thing as is some of the language used.

Berat Albayrak, who is also Mr Erdogan’s son-in-law, said the central bank would be effective “like never before” and promised to bring soaring inflation down into the single digits “in the shortest time possible”.
“Speculation about the independence and decision-making mechanisms of the central bank is unacceptable,” he added. “A central bank that is effective like never before will be one of the fundamental aims of the policies of the new era.”

He failed however to use the trump card of a “bigly”. Of course the Financial Times somehow still manages to believe in central bank independence whereas we abandoned such thoughts years ago. Whilst the example below is admittedly extreme the theme is familiar.

Turkey’s central bank announced three interest rate rises during the campaign for June 24 elections, with a cumulative total of 500 basis points. The bank’s benchmark lending rate stands at 17.75 per cent.

So up,up and indeed up and away whereas the rhetoric is rather different. This is Hurriyet Daily News quoting President Erdogan on the 11th of May

“My belief is that interest rates are the mother of all evils. Interest rates are the cause of inflation. Inflation is a result, not a cause. We need to push down interest rates,”

As we wonder if Bank of England Governor Mark Carney was taking notes it is time to switch to the economic impact of all of this. The first factor we have already noted which is an interest-rate of 17.75% which is out of kilter with the economic times by some distance. As opposed to the -0.4% of neighbouring Greece or the 0.1% of Israel if we look the other way. So a break is being applied.

The Exchange-Rate

We can switch quickly to this as we know we only get rises in interest-rates like this if the national currency is in what Taylor Swift would call “trouble,trouble,trouble”. The latest Central Bank of Turkey minutes puts it somewhat euphemistically.

exchange rate developments

Or as the Hurriyet Daily News puts it.

The lira weakened to a record low of 4.9767 against the dollar late on July 11. The currency opened the July 12 trading at around 4.83 against the greenback.

The lira has shed nearly 25 percent of its value against the U.S. currency so far this year.

If we look at the pattern we see that the rate has been heading south for some time as five years ago it was at 2.04. However an acceleration started at the end of April when it was 4.05. Or returning to Ms Swift.

And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate

If we stay with financial markets there is a familiar sequence of responses to this.

Fall-out from Turkey’s tumbling lira hammered banking shares on July 11, sending the Istanbul stock market to its biggest one-day fall in two years.

The main share index dropped more than 5 percent while bank stocks lost 9 percent in their worst day for five years.

The yield on Turkey’s benchmark 10-year bond rose to 18.48 percent from 17.36 percent at close on July 10.

Central bankers will be panicking at all the negative wealth effects here. Care is needed as in such volatile circumstances markets ebb and flow quickly although it has mainly been ebb. Also the official interest-rate and bond yield numbers remind me of my analysis of how to deal with a foreign exchange crisis on May 3rd. If you think that a currency is collapsing then even ~18% interest-rates do not help much and even worse via forward or futures calculations it makes it look like the currency will drop even further. At some point investors will think things have stabilised and especially in these times will pile in for a juicy yield but when?

I’ll never miss a beat, I’m lightning on my feet

The trouble is that in the meantime you have slammed the brakes on your domestic economy.

Inflation

This is a consequence of the lower currency as the price of imported goods and services rises. For a while existing contracts may be a shelter but then it hits home.

In May, consumer prices rose by 1.62 percent and annual inflation increased by 1.30 points to 12.15 percent. The uptick in inflation spread across subgroups in this period ( CBRT)

Last week we learned that the CBRT was right to expect more bad news.

Inflation rose to 15.39 percent year-on-year, the highest annual rate since 2004 after a new method of calculating price rises was introduced, and month-on-month CPI inflation leapt to 2.61 percent – nearly double the forecast in a Reuters poll.

It looks set to go higher still.

Trade

Whilst a lower currency boosts an economy as price competitive exports and imports respond this takes time. Before they do you are actually in a worse situation as your imports cost more as the J-Curve and Reverse J-Curve entwine. Thus we get this.

According to the data released on July 11, the current account deficit rose to $5.9 billion in May from $5.4 billion in the corresponding month last year, with a nearly 9.6 percent year-on-year increase. ( Hurriyet Daily News)…….The country’s 12-month rolling deficit reached $57.6 billion in May, the data also showed.

This compares to these.

Turkey’s annual current account deficit in 2017 was around $47.3 billion, compared to the previous year’s figure of $33.1 billion.

Comment

Much of this feels like the UK in the 1970s although to be fair Turkish inflation it has yet to hit the 26.9% seen in the summer of 1975. A sharp brake has been applied to the economy via the higher cost of imports and via higher interest-rates. If we move to the business sector there will also be an impact from this.

The Turkish energy sector is facing an increasingly unstable situation with a rapidly declining lira making it impossible to repay billions of dollars’ worth of loans accumulated over the past 15 years.

Since 2003 $95bn has been invested into the country’s energy sector, of which $51bn remains to be paid. This figure represents 15% of the $340bn owed by non-financial companies in overseas liabilities, according to data from the nation’s central bank. ( Power Technology)

This is also familiar as countries which are in danger of trouble make it worse by borrowing in a foreign currency because it is cheaper in interest-rate terms. After all what could go wrong? It is also reminiscent of the foreign currency mortgage crisis of parts of south-eastern Europe. At least they did not borrow in Swiss Francs.

A recession is a danger as this hits and we will have to wait and see what develops but as to the talk of plenty of measures that sounds a little like capital controls to me. However the official view echoes Ms. Swift again.

Yesterday the Governor of the Bank of England visited the Great Exhibition of the North and went to Newcastle but sadly without any coal. As usual he was unable to admit his own role in events when they have gone badly and this was illustrated by the sentence below.

We meet today after the first decade of falling real incomes in the UK since the middle of the 19th century.

Perhaps he had written his speech before the Office of National Statistics told these specifics on Wednesday but he should have been aware of the overall picture. The emphasis is mine.

Both cash basis and national accounts real household disposable income (RHDI) declined for the second successive year in 2017. This was due largely to the impact of inflation on gross disposable household income (GDHI),

The issue here is that the Bank Rate cut and Sledgehammer QE sent the UK Pound £ lower after the EU Leave vote. Just for clarity it would have fallen anyway just not by so much and certainly not below US $1.20, After all we have seen it above US $1.30 now and if you look back you see that it has in general two stages. The first which was down accompanied the period the Bank of England promised more easing – it is easy to forget now that they promised to cut Bank Rate to 0.1% in November 2016 before events made it too embarrassing to carry it through – and then once that stopped stability and then a rise. With a lag inflation followed this trend but with a reverse pattern. So if we return to the data above we now see this.

On a quarter on same quarter a year ago basis, both measures of RHDI increased in Quarter 1 2018. Cash RHDI increased by 2.4% and national accounts RHDI grew by 2%;

Now the inflation effect has faded the numbers are growing again. Again not all of the effect is due to it dropping as stronger employment has helped but it is in there. As a final point these numbers make me smile as I recall some of you being kind enough to point out my role in us finally getting numbers without the fantasy elements.

This bulletin provides Experimental Statistics on the impact of removing “imputed” transactions from real household disposable income (RHDI).

Forward Guidance

It would not be a Mark Carney speech if he did not reverse what he told us last time as he racks up the U-Turns. First he did some cheerleading for himself.

That approach has worked . Employment is at a record high. Import price inflation is fading. Real
wages are rising.

This of course relies on the power of a 0.25% Bank Rate cut ( plus more QE) but sadly nobody asked why if that is so powerful why the previous 4% or so of cuts did not put the economy through the roof? Also his policies made imported inflation worse and real wages are only rising if you choose a favourable inflation measure.

Also we got what in gardening terms is a hardy perennial.

Now, with the excess supply in the economy virtually used up

It has been about to be used up for all of his term! Remember when an unemployment rate of 7% was a sign of it? Well it is 4.2% now. But in spite of the obvious persistent failures it would appear that it is deja vu allover again.

The UK labour market has remained strong, and there is widespread evidence that slack is
largely used up.

Next we get this

Domestically, the incoming data have given me greater confidence that the softness of UK activity in the first
quarter was largely due to the weather, not the economic climate.

And this.

A number of indicators of household
spending and sentiment have bounced back strongly from what increasingly appears to have been erratic
weakness in Q1………….Headline
inflation is still expected to rise in the short-term because of higher energy prices.

Leads to the equivalent of something of a mouth full and the emphasis is mine.

As the MPC has stressed, were the economy to develop broadly in line with the May Inflation Report
projections – with demand growth exceeding the 1½% estimated rate of supply growth leading to a small
margin of excess demand emerging by early 2020 and domestic inflationary pressures continuing to build
gradually to rates consistent with the 2% target – an ongoing tightening of monetary policy over the next few years would be appropriate to return inflation sustainably to its target at a conventional horizon.

For newer readers unaware of how he earned the nickname the unreliable boyfriend let me take you back four years and a month to his Mansion House speech.

The MPC has rightly stressed that the timing of the first Bank Rate increase is less important than the path
thereafter – that is, the degree and pace of increases after they start. In particular, we expect that eventual
increases in Bank Rate will be gradual and limited.

Well he was right about the limited bit as it is still where it was then at the “emergency” level of 0.5%. Actually of course he was believed to have been much more specific at the time.

There’s already great speculation about the exact timing of the first rate hike and this decision is becoming
more balanced.
It could happen sooner than markets currently expect.

The next day saw quite a scramble as markets adjusted to what they believed in central banker speak was as near to a promise as they would get. You may not be bothered too much about financial traders ( like me) but this had real world implications as for example people took out fixed-rate mortgages and then found the next move was in fact a cut.

Yet some saw this as a sign as this from Joel Hills of ITV indicates.

Mark Carney signalling that, despite all the uncertainty, “gradual and limited” interest rate rises are looming. Market is betting that Bank of England will probably increase Bank Rate in August.

Just like in May when they lost their bets as part of a now long-running series. The foreign exchange markets have learnt their lesson after receiving some burnt fingers in the past and responded little. Perhaps they focused on this bit.

Pay and domestic cost growth have continued to firm broadly as expected.

Now if we start in December the official series for total pay growth has gone 3.1%, 2.8%, 2.6%,2.5% and then 2.5% in April which simply is not “firm” at all. Of course central bankers love to cherry pick but sadly the season for cherries has not been kind here either. If we move to private-sector regular pay as guided we see on the same timescale 2.9%, 3%, 2.8%, 3.2% but then a rather ugly 2.5% in April. There are few excuses here as they have excluded bonuses which are often high in April.

Comment

We have been here so may times now with the unreliable boyfriend who just cannot commit to a Bank Rate rise. Each time he echoes Carly Rae Jepson and ” really really really really really really ” wants to but there is then a slip between cup and lip. If we look back to May which regular readers will recall had been described by the Financial Times as an example of forward guidance for an interest-rate rise the feet got cold. If they do so again will we see wage growth as the excuse? We do not know this month’s numbers but as we stand they looked better back then than now.

If we look over the Atlantic we see a different story of a central bank raising interest-rates into an apparently strong economy and promising more. We are of course between the US and Euro area in economic terms but in my opinion it would have been much better if we had backed up the rhetoric and now had interest-rates of say 1.25%.or 1.5%. If we cannot take that then what has the claimed recover been worth.

Considering all the broken promises and to coin a phrase four years of hurt this is really rather breathtaking,

‘The great advantage is that we can change monetary policy quickly if we need to in contrast to fiscal policy which is much slower’ Mark Carney #NPHSummitpic.twitter.com/OXNGtrOJK3

Sometimes events have their own natural flow and after noting yesterday that the winds of change in UK inflation are reversing we have been reminded twice already today that the heat is on. First from a land down under where inflation expectations have done this according to Trading Economics.

Inflation Expectations in Australia increased to 4.20 percent in June from 3.70 percent in May of 2018.

This is significant in several respects. Firstly the message is expect higher inflation and if we look at the Reserve Bank of Australia this is the highest number in the series ( since March 2013). Next if we stay with the RBA it poses clear questions as inflation at 1.9% is below target ( 2.5%) but f these expectations are any guide then an interest-rate of 1.5% seems well behind the curve.

Indeed the RBA is between a rock and a hard place as we observe this from Reuters.

Australia’s central bank governor said on Wednesday the current slowdown in the housing market isn’t a cause for concern but flagged the need for policy to remain at record lows for the foreseeable future with wage growth and inflation still weak.

Home prices across Australia’s major cities have fallen for successive months since late last year as tighter lending standards at banks cooled demand in Sydney and Melbourne – the two biggest markets.

You know something is bad when we are told it is not a concern!

If we move to much cooler Sweden I note this from its statistics authority.

The inflation rate according to the CPI with a fixed interest rate (CPIF) was 2.1 percent in May 2018, up from 1.9 percent in April 2018. The CPIF increased by 0.3 percent from April to May.

So Mission Accomplished!

The Riksbank’s target is to hold inflation in terms of the CPIF around 2 per cent a year.

Yet we find that having hit it and via higher oil prices the pressure being upwards it is doing this.

The Executive Board has therefore decided to hold the repo rate unchanged at −0.50 per cent and assesses that the rate will begin to be raised towards the end of the year, which is somewhat later than previously forecast.

Care is needed here as you see the Riksbank has been forecasting an interest-rate rise for some years now but like the Unreliable Boyfriend somehow it keeps forgetting to actually do it.

I keep forgettin’ things will never be the same again
I keep forgettin’ how you made that so clear
I keep forgettin’ ( Michael McDonald )

Anyway it is a case of watch this space as even they have real food for thought right now as they face the situation below with negative interest-rates.

Economic activity in Sweden is still strong and inflation has been close to the target for the past year.

US Inflation

The situation here is part of an increasingly familiar trend.

The all items index rose 2.8 percent for the 12 months ending May, continuing its upward trend since the beginning of the year. The index for all items less food and
energy rose 2.2 percent for the 12 months ending May. The food index increased 1.2 percent, and the energy index rose 11.7 percent.

This was repeated at an earlier stage in the inflation cycle as we found out yesterday.

On an unadjusted basis, the final demand index moved up
3.1 percent for the 12 months ended in May, the largest 12-month increase since climbing 3.1 percent in January 2012.

In May, 60 percent of the rise in the index for final demand is attributable to a 1.0-percent advance in prices for final demand goods.

A little care is needed as the US Federal Reserve targets inflation based on PCE or Personal Consumption Expenditures which you may not be surprised to read is usually lower ( circa 0.4%) than CPI. We do not know what it was for May yet but using my rule of thumb it will be on its way from the 2% in April to maybe 2.4%.

What does the Federal Reserve make of this?

Well this best from yesterday evening is clear.

In view of realized and expected labor market conditions and inflation, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 1-3/4 to 2 percent. The stance of monetary policy remains accommodative, thereby supporting strong labor market conditions and a sustained return to 2 percent inflation.

If we start with that let me give you a different definition of accommodative which is an interest-rate below the expected inflation rate. Of course that is off the scale in Sweden and perhaps Australia. Next we see a reference to “strong labo(u)r market conditions” which only adds to this. Putting it another way “strong” replaced “moderate” as its view on economic activity.

This is how the New York Times viewed matters.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and signaled that two additional increases were on the way this year, as officials expressed confidence that the United States economy was strong enough for borrowing costs to rise without choking off economic growth.

Care is needed about borrowing costs as bond yields ignored the move but of course some may pay more. Also we have seen a sort of lost decade in interest-rate terms.

The last time the rate topped 2 percent was in late summer 2008, when the economy was contracting and the Fed was cutting rates toward zero, where they would remain for years after the financial crisis.

Yet there is a clear gap between rhetoric and reality on one area at least as here is the Fed Chair.

The decision you see today is another sign that the U.S. economy is in great shape,” Mr. Powell said after the Fed’s two-day policy meeting. “Most people who want to find jobs are finding them.”

Yet I note this too.

At a comparable time of low unemployment, in 2000, “wages were growing at near 4 percent year over year and the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation was 2.5 percent,” both above today’s levels, Tara Sinclair, a senior fellow at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said in a research note.

So inflation is either there or near but can anyone realistically say that about wages?

Mr. Powell played down concerns about slow wage growth, acknowledging it is “a bit of a puzzle” but suggesting that it would normalize as the economy continued to strengthen.

What is normal now please Mr.Powell?

Comment

One of my earliest themes was that central banks would struggle when it comes to reducing all the stimulus because they would be terrified if it caused a slow down. A bit like the ECB moved around 2011 then did a U-Turn. What I did not know then was that the scale of their operations would increase dramatically exacerbating the problem. To be fair to the US Federal Reserve it is attempting the move albeit it would be better to take larger earlier steps in my opinion as opposed to this drip-feed of minor ones.

In some ways the US Federal Reserve is the worlds central bank ( via the role of the US Dollar as the reserve currency) and takes the world with it. But there have been changes here as for example the Bank of England used to move in concert with it in terms of trends if not exact amounts. But these days the Unreliable Boyfriend who is Governor of the Bank of England thinks he knows better than that and continues to dangle future rises like a carrot in front of the reality of a 0.5% Bank Rate.

This afternoon will maybe tell us a little more about Euro area monetary policy. Mario Draghi and the ECB have given Forward Guidance about the end of monthly QE via various hints. But that now faces the reality of a Euro area fading of economic growth. So Mario may be yet another central bank Governor who cannot wait for his term of office to end.

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About the author

I am a freelance economist who studied at the London School of Economics. My speciality was (and still is) monetary economics. I worked in the City of London for several investment banks and then on my own account over a period of 15 years. After initially working in the government bond department at Phillips and Drew Ltd. I moved on into the derivatives arena with options of all types being a speciality. I never lost my specialisation in UK interest rates and also traded as a local on the London International Financial Futures Exchange where I mostly traded futures and options on future and present UK interest rates. So with my specialisations of monetary economics and konwledge of derivatives I have plenty of expertise to deploy on the financial and economic crisis which has unfolded in recent years.

I have also worked in Tokyo Japan again in the derivatives sphere and would particularly recommend Japanese food with a pork tonkatsu box lunch being one of my favourites. My name is Shaun Richards and as well as writing economics reports and analysis I also give speeches and lectures.Should one or all of these be of interest then please contact me via the contact details on this website.

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